Comeback Time for Christians
by William Murchison
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The Holy Father—Pope Benedict XVI—offers to let Episcopalians and other Anglicans of Catholic disposition join the Roman Catholic Church, while retaining characteristics of their Anglican identity. And who in the booming pagan market cares a flying broomstick what the pope does about anything?
Not the Wiccans, an estimated 340,000 strong. Not the worshippers of Wotan or the fallen gods and spirits of the pre-Christian world. Not best-selling God revilers such as Richard Dawkins. Not secularist lawyers arguing in behalf of secularist clients against the display of religious symbols in public places.
The American Religious Identification Survey says the United States is home to 2.8 million members of “other religions” and of the New Religions Movement. Compare that with 2 million or so Episcopalians (versus the 3.6 million the church counted in 1965). Rome, Canterbury, Geneva; the Eastern Orthodox, the Lutherans, the Southern Baptists; the Trinity, the Sacraments, heaven—mere abstractions to the growing colony of secularists and neo-pagans hopeful of liberating America from God.
And likely to get away with it? The “redemption” of the world from Christianity and Judaism looks about as likely as a Presidential Medal of Freedom for Bernie Madoff. Still, the times are tough for traditional organized religions, not least because those who say they profess the faith seem sometimes to agree more with its antagonists than its defenders.
Odd as the idea might seem, secularism has a major constituency inside religion, including the Anglican expression of religion. The pope’s offer to Anglicans proceeds from internal warfare in Anglicanism between those who see feminism and gay rights as gospel causes and those who, shall we say, don’t.
Anglicans as a breed may be tolerant to a fault and disinclined to pick fights with one another. Nevertheless, the cultural strains and stresses of the 20th century have put increasing distance between so-called “liberals” and “conservatives,” the latter having come to fear that the former—who control most leadership posts—are tearing down all moral, scriptural and theological guardrails. (For more information, see, ahem, my Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity.)
The trouble with modern times, from the standpoint of the conservatives, is all the emphasis they place upon diversity and individual choice. A thing doesn’t have to be “true” or to suit a classically meditated set of beliefs; it merely has to catch the eye and interest of a few. We wouldn’t try to stifle individual viewpoints, would we? It wouldn’t be tolerant, would it? Tolerant of what? Tolerant of whatever turns you on. Such as Wicca. If it feels good, sounds good, looks good—well, do it, and bless you. Don’t you feel that 1960s spirit coming on?
The spirit of diversity, of course, implies a spirit of No Truth, rather than one of Truth, because, look, if we’re really open and accepting of everything, nothing binds, nothing restrains and anything goes. Witches, Jesus, Zeus, Moses, Baal—whatever turns you on, man.
Yet pushback inevitably comes. If Truth really is True, instead of merely relative to various perceptions, a strong coterie of believers is going to declare as much and insist Truth be maintained, just as conservative Anglicans do in their warfare with liberal leaders who seem to see them as a bunch of troublesome yahoos.
Parishes and whole dioceses have formally separated from the Episcopal Church, whose bad-tempered response involves suing for property and trying to strip departing priests and bishops of their authority so much as to minister the sacraments. This, while Wiccans and Druids multiply and scoffers such as Dawkins thumb their noses at the idea of a transcendent God.
Pope Benedict XVI has some idea of the stakes in the battle. Secularism, not to mention Islam, has thrown down the gauntlet to Christianity. The pope sees the world as ripe for intensive and faithful presentation of the Christian message; he wants all the allies he can get. The alliance he offers to Anglicans of like conviction is more than mere pushback. It’s comeback—on specifically Christian, specifically countercultural terms.
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1 Comment by robert on 27 October 2009:
Excellent article. Most of Mr. Murchison’s writing is good,is always respectable and sometimes excellent. Why excellent? Because it speaks a truth which will become diffusive among men of good will.
2 Comment by Bruce on 28 October 2009:
I think I said this before, but I don’t consider Anglicans who stayed within the Anglican Communion after the 1970’s to be “conservative” at all. Real Anglicans chose to lose their church property and start over again rather than remain in a non-Christian Church that has a pretty liturgy.
3 Comment by John Mitchel's last laugh on 29 October 2009:
The great problem with Anglican ‘conservatism’ is the same as with Republican party ‘conservatism:’ it does not conserve anything worth conserving, instead acting to try to save a rotting corpse that was a monstrous freak at birth.
4 Comment by robert on 29 October 2009:
@3 John,
“it does not conserve anything worth conserving” This is true about the Republican party, but not the Anglican Church. This generous opening of Pope Benedict towards out forefathers in faith is some of the best news I have heard this year. These are the best and brightest of the Church of England who despise the random and capricious opinions of the hellish minds within their communion. The blood of St. Thomas Moore, the assasination of the Carthusians, the grace and good will of so many pious Anglicans is finally merging into one hymn of praise. Who on earth, can be oppossed to that kind of grace?
5 Comment by Michael Kenny on 29 October 2009:
I would guess that the Pope’s mesage is aimed at Black Africa. The loudest rumblings within the Anglican Communion have come from there and the Catholic Church is particularly well placed in English-speaking Africa. Thanks to several generations of Irish Catholic missionaries, the Catholic Church is the predominant Christian denomination in English-speaking Africa and has the added advantage of not being the religion of the former colonial power, the latter point being a major “selling point” for Islam. I wouldn’t expect any significant “defection” in Europe or North America.
6 Comment by robert on 29 October 2009:
“I wouldn’t expect any significant “defection” in Europe or North America.”
Not if by “significant” you mean numbers, but if you mean not any significant minds from England and America, you are practicing willfull ignorance and working for the one whose name is legion.
7 Comment by Bruce on 29 October 2009:
“it does not conserve anything worth conserving, instead acting to try to save a rotting corpse that was a monstrous freak at birth.”
If that’s true (it’s not) then what does that say about the judgement of the current “Vicar of Christ?”
8 Comment by robert on 29 October 2009:
“Thanks to several generations of Irish Catholic missionaries, the Catholic Church is the predominant Christian denomination in English-speaking Africa”
One point that is often overlooked in our times is the work of the Holy Ghost Fathers and Archbishop Lefevre in French speaking Africa. He was, as our current Holy Father, Benedict, said of him some months ago, ” a great and venerable man of the Church” The stones he laid there fifty years ago have become living stones in the growing darkness of what is now Africa.
9 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 30 October 2009:
Richard Dawkins may be annoying to watch on godless television, but when Ben Stein interviewed him in the excellent documentary, Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed, the atheist archpoobah proved to be inarticulate as he stumbled over his words and incoherent thoughts. Stein just sat there expressionless. The entire scene was priceless. I have never viewed atheism as a threat to Christianity since.
10 Comment by J Meng on 30 October 2009:
Just another continuation of fooling ourselves. First, this is an example of the impostor’s promulgation of his ecumenical world church; second, has he forgotten that Anglicanism is heretical (many Catholics were martyred by not cooperating with Elizabeth I’s attempt to force them to become Anglicans, like Fr. Edward Campion); and third, Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical “Apostolicae curae” pointed out that so-called Holy Orders of the Anglicans is invalid. I guess Ratzinger forgot about that. What emanates from Rome is not Catholic.
11 Comment by Bruce on 31 October 2009:
@10: Yes, and bloody Mary was such a sweet gal.
12 Comment by Bruce on 31 October 2009:
@10: So your position is?:
1. Roman Catholicism is true.
2. God can’t manage to have a Pope at this time.
13 Comment by J Meng on 1 November 2009:
Bruce @ 12, Yeah, I think you got it right, except number 2. God is permitting the apostasy because responsible Catholic authorities have not done as Our Lady of Fatima asked. As for the slur “Bloody Mary” that was conceived by those who authored the Black Legend, a hodgpodge of lies against Catholics and the Catholic Church. Study history, pal.
14 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 2 November 2009:
I fear Meng, like all sedevacantists and other such apostate Catholics, has confused himself. Either there is a Church or is not a Church, and if at least part of that Church has been represented by the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome, then a self-styled Catholic must either submit or else declare himself something else. The fate of renegade movements within the Church should give an honest man pause. The Catholics who rebelled against Pius IX on the grounds of tradition proceeded very quickly to embrace every imaginable disorder. And, although I have friends within the Pius X Society and respect the motives of the founder, it is pretty apparent that the self-important nutcase, Williamson, represents the future of that movement, if they do not return to the Church. It is, alas, typical of modern Americans that they are so often morally incapable of accepting any authority beyond their own whim. Here in Rockford, there is a group of people who claim to represent the true and authentic traditions of the early Church. Their “priest” has multiple ordinations from every kind of splinter sect–the Old Catholics being the least crazy–while his wife has set herself up as the mother of the church. It is all a bit too reminiscent of Simon Magus who called himself the Power of God and went around working bogus miracles with a prostitute he renamed Mind, the first emanation of the godhead.Every man his own Pope is only the first step down the road that ends in every man worshipping what he sees in the mirror. (Please note I am not even hinting a word of criticism against Protestants who are faithful to their traditions.)
15 Comment by J Meng on 3 November 2009:
Dear Dr. Fleming,
I have two questions for you, Scott Richert, and Tom Piatak: is the Catholic Church the one true Church established by our Lord Jesus Christ outside of which there is no salvation? And, two, if you assent to this, then aren’t all other Protestant and non-Christian “churches”, temples, etc., frauds, fakes, and insults to God Almighty and do not lead to salvation?
16 Comment by Scott P. Richert on 3 November 2009:
Mr. Meng, we’ve been down this road before, and I have nothing to add to our previous discussion, which you abandoned after I proved that you were being mendacious. If you’d like to reread that discussion, feel free to do so, but I’m not wasting my time with a man who is unwilling to admit when he is caught in a bald-faced lie.
17 Comment by Theodore M. Van Oosbree on 3 November 2009:
Come on in, Mr. Murchison, the water’s fine.
18 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 3 November 2009:
Thank you for the fine piece, Mr. Murchison.
I agree with Mr. Meng inasmuch as the Catholic Church is the one true Church “outside of which there is no salvation.” Indeed, this is dogma that nobody can legitimately question.
I disagree with his attitude about the present overture from the Holy See. Pope Benedict is doing this over the STRIDENT objections of liberals. They hate him for this, and they are squealing like stuck pigs. Of course Anglican Orders are invalid. There is no pretense here that Leo XIII or his predecessors were wrong in the matter. The Anglicans who are embracing (indeed, have requested) this provision, are showing humility and good will by agreeing to be ordained/consecrated so that sacramental validity and Apostolic succession will be restored to them. Deo Gratias!
In short, this is a good thing. And if you believe “no salvation outside the Church” — and Catholics have to — you should have joy in your soul over this. God bless our Holy Father. Our Lady of Walsingham and Good King Edward, pray for him!
http://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-118.html
19 Comment by Bruce on 4 November 2009:
“Of course Anglican Orders are invalid.”
Father Robert Hart of the Anglican Continuum has posted some excellent defenses of Anglican Holy Orders. Here’s one:
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2008/12/ej-bicknell-on-anglican-orders-first.html
20 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 4 November 2009:
Meng, after making preposterous and self-contradictory claims, cannot be permitted to deflect the argument. He of all people cannot pretend to believe in the supremacy of the Church of Rome, even as he is condemning Rome. He is like those “patriots” who, in the name of saving their country, are willing to kill everyone in it.
The question of salvation outside the Church begs the question of what the Church is. I know there have been otherwise faithful and responsible Catholics who have sometimes–in the heat of a polemical moment I hope–that the Church does not include separated brethren whose theological differences are comparatively trifling. To say that the Orthodox cannot be saved is offensive to reason, to history, and to the majesty of our Creator. As for others, I simply do not know, but just as I do not believe that Origen, who made some serious theological mistakes while yet making mighty contributions to the Church, is in Hell, I think that it may be a sin of presumption to insist upon the damnation of Protestants. I know it makes us feel good to think “I’m saved and you’re not,” but it strikes me as a bit too Calvinistic to separate people on the basis of what they think or believe. In my life I have met few people capable of independent thought, and, even in most of those cases, their independence was confined to subjects to which they have devoted their lives. What, am I to believe that some bone-head Pentecostalist who keeps the Commandments and practices charity is burning in Hell while Leo X is singing with the angels?
I looked at Mr. Hart’s article, and it says nothing I had not heard when I wandered in the darkness of the Anglican communion. Whatever else can be said about the Episcopal Church, it is clear that we have to distinguish between Henry’s church, which included many priests and bishops who had been previously ordained and the church after Edward and Elizabeth, when the tradition was for the most part broken. There is simply no good case for apostolic succession. Now, if Hart and his allies want to say that the traditions and rites of the old church are not necessary, then they part company with traditional Christianity and there is no point to the conversation. I fear conservative Anglicans are hoist on their own petard, but they have spent over 400 years in that awkward position. I am sympathetic. I still hear the old prayers in my head. There was a time when I could recite the entire Morning Prayer service from memory. But, whatever good the Anglican Church did once, it is now nothing more than an historical oddity, and the oddest part of it are the splinter groups that insist they are truly Anglican and truly Catholic. The problem with Anglicans and Republicans is that they are conservatives, meaning they cling to a tradition even when it is dead.
21 Comment by Lone Racer on 4 November 2009:
@18: “I agree with Mr. Meng inasmuch as the Catholic Church is the one true Church “outside of which there is no salvation.” Indeed, this is dogma that nobody can legitimately question.”
Is this really true; that is at least, the true doctrine of the Church? I’m very ignorant of religious doctrine. I, perhaps being very “American” (not a compliment in this context), find this subsequent line @20 from the editor far saner and more to my liking:
“To say that the Orthodox cannot be saved is offensive to reason, to history, and to the majesty of our Creator.”
But why stop there? Why can’t one faith, say the Catholic one, be true, without condemning non-Catholics who live humane and ethical lives? Are the more dogmatic here really saying the following:
1. God exists;
2. and men have immortal souls;
3. whose eternal fate is decided not by their moral actions performed in the course of their ridiculously brief, and wildly unequal, dissimilar and thoroughly contingent personal histories;
4. but by whether they had the good fortune to be Catholic (and were morally perceptive, which could mean intelligent, enough to have made the right ethical decisions)?
This sounds a lot like the reverse of my Calvinist friend who absolutely insists that the late Pope John Paul II is in Hell, and who really wants me to become a Protestant in order to be saved (he is a racist, by the way, in case anyone was wondering … takes all kinds, etc …).
Do intelligent people actually believe this stuff?! I’ve been taught (perhaps incorrectly) by Catholic elders that, though our Faith is the True One, the righteous of all persuasions will be saved based on the quality of their moral lives, not what particular creed they profess (or not). This is not moral relativism, of course, just basic fairness mixed with Divine Mercy.
Are people here saying that all Muslims, Hindus, Jews, etc are going to Hell, irrespective of how they conducted their moral lives? What about those who never heard of Christ? The mind reels at such harshness! What about the good friend of mine who is a kind and gentle soul, highly intelligent, well-read, if scientifically inclined, but who reluctantly considers atheism more plausible than any faith? Off with his soul, you say?
I’m no theologian, but I am familiar with much secular Western philosophy. If this exclusivist view has been a hallmark of the Church(es) for the last millenium and a half, it doesn’t surprise me at all that so many learned men dissented from and revolted against their Christian upbringings.
22 Comment by Bruce on 4 November 2009:
@20. Thank you for looking Dr. Fleming. He would not say that the traditions and rites of the old church are not necessary.
You are both men that are immeasureably more learned than myself. You would both say the same thing about the other side: “It’s so obvious to anyone that’s well read that they’re wrong.” And you’d both cite various texts to support your positions. So, what’s a guy like me to do? I did my best and I’m where I’m at.
I’m sympathetic to your tradition since it’s (literally) the faith of my fathers.
23 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 4 November 2009:
Dr. Fleming and Lone Racer,
I’m going by the Church’s dogmatic teachings. I proffer no judgment of any individual, for I do not know the state of each man’s heart when he meets God at his particular judgment. How Leo X entered eternity is a mystery to me. (Should the Church canonize him, I’d be surprised, but I accept the Church’s judgment.)
The Church’s teachings on the objective requisites for salvation are clear and straightforward, and they certainly do not “beg the question of what the Church is” (pace, Dr. Flemming). The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is confident of Her own identity.
Here are infallible magisterial pronouncements on the matter in question:
* “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)
* “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)
* “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)
I am quite aware that their are loose readings of these documents and that there are many theologians who explain them away just as they explain away the doctrines of Original Sin, Transubstantiation, the ministerial priesthood, etc. But these corrosive explanations are problems, not solutions.
Let me add, lest I be considered the troglodyte, that I accept the Catholic moral distinctions of “material” and “formal” in the arenas of heresy and schism. I’ve met many an Orthodox whom I do not consider “schismatic” because they (like Soloviev and others) accept the Papacy at a personal level and don’t ACT schismatic. I commend them, and all, to the just and merciful Judge, but I will not lie and say that alien sects of any sort are positive means of salvation. That proposition, stated in more PC language, is all the rage today. This explains, in large measure, the chaos we are witnessing in the Church.
As for the invalidity of Anglican Orders, this question was authoritatively addressed by the Roman Pontiff, Leo XIII (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13curae.htm ). The only exception — and it does not contradict Leo, given the circumstances — would be those Anglicans who sought and apparently received valid orders from the Old Catholics and similar groups that have valid succession. In doing this, they showed at least very great concern that Leo might be right.
24 Comment by Bruce on 4 November 2009:
Brother Marie, I think the section of Bicknell’s book quoted in the link I gave was a response to Apostolicae Curae.
Some Roman Catholic acquaintences have told me that on one Friday during the 1960’s they were taught that it was a mortal sin to eat meat. Then, on the next Sunday they were taught that it wasn’t. Assuming that they’re not lying, is this sort of discontinuity what the Church does with Her teaching authority?
25 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 4 November 2009:
Bruce,
I’m sorry. I didn’t read the response of Bicknell to Apostolicae Curae.
Regarding the eating of meat on Fridays, that was a change in discipline, not dogma. The Church was given authority both to bind and to loose in matters of ecclesiastical discipline. When she makes a law binding on Christians (and she only binds her own, even though, strictly speaking, she has authority over ALL the baptized), she can also loose that same law. She has no authority over the Natural Law (also called the Moral Law) or the Divine Positive Law, except to mediate them to us through her teaching authority. But positive human law (and ecclesiastical law is human law) can be changed.
On our web site is a good article on this, dating from 1955:
http://catholicism.org/church-laws-changing.html
26 Comment by J Meng on 4 November 2009:
To Dr. Fleming at #20: Of course, I believe in the supremacy of Rome, when it is occupied by Catholics! You are certainly adding something I have never asserted; but then, that is your style.
27 Comment by J Meng on 4 November 2009:
Dear Mr. Richert, what an apt example of the “cop out”. You never answered my questions and hid behind the proverbial attack, which holds no water except in your brain. Are you not sure of your faith?
28 Comment by J Meng on 4 November 2009:
Dear Dr. Fleming @ #20: But you didn’t answer the questions. You merely continued your grind against me. Talk about evasion….
29 Comment by J Meng on 4 November 2009:
To Tom Piatak, unless you are on vacation, I noticed that you did not address my questions.
30 Comment by Tom Piatak on 4 November 2009:
Mr. Meng,
I am an ordinary layman, not a theologian, who believes what the Church teaches. As for what the Church teaches, I defer to the Pope and the bishops in communion with him. And although I am interested in defending Christian civilization from atheism, I am not particularly interested in theological disputation and do not wish to be drawn into a theological argument.
31 Comment by Theodore Van Oosbree on 4 November 2009:
The best theology for the layman or anybody else: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
Matthew 7:13, 14
32 Comment by Scott P. Richert on 4 November 2009:
Mr. Meng, until you admit the lie that I caught you in in this comment, we have nothing further to discuss.
33 Comment by J Meng on 4 November 2009:
Mr. Piatak,
Is the fact that Christ founded the one, true Church, the Catholic Church; and that outside it there is no salvation, a matter of theological disputation? These questions have been part of the Deposit of Faith for centuries. What is difficult for a Catholic to acknowledge this fact? I would think that a Catholic, when asked the question I posed, would confirm it by answering “yes”, which you and Mr. Fleming and Mr. Richert are unable to do. A “yes” answer, also condemns the claims of all the other so-called churches of the Protestants and non-Christian religions of their validity. Are you afraid of not being politically correct according to Vatican II’s policies on religious liberty and ecumenism?
34 Comment by Brock H. on 4 November 2009:
Lone Racer @21:
So then you are not a Christian. Fine then, we can all just agree to disagree with you. Believing that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to eternal life is the cornerstone of Christian belief. If the concept of moral “fairness”, as you call it, towards people of non-Christian faiths, a concept touted by our pagan mainstream media and entertainment establishment, is more attractive to you, then worship their god of fairness, equality, and relativism. We will worship ours. If other RELIGIONS, not simply the other two Christian sects of Orthodoxy and Protestantism, were what your elders were referring to when stating that people of other creeds can be saved based on their moral deeds, those said elders should be defrocked and excommunicated.
35 Comment by robert on 4 November 2009:
“These questions have been part of the Deposit of Faith for centuries. What is difficult for a Catholic to acknowledge this fact?”
Nothing, because a Catholic cannot be sectarian. Catholics must refuse to embrace “isms” even those that you, by a play on words, refer to as Catholic–ism. Charity covers a multitude of sins and for those who have been given much in terms of faith and understanding, much will be expected. I know that Christ established a Church and can be found within that Church and the Tradition He revealed and established. I am just not very sure that you are very familiar with it. You remind me of those brash and sophomore Apostles who told Christ with a certain pride, that there were some other folks casting out demons in his name so they took the initiative to stop them. You, as member of the true Church, should certainly rememeber His response and the consequences of its meaning. St Benedict described obedience as a kind of listening with a humble heart. Which I take it, is why he advised his monks to avoid loud and obnoxious types who go around seeking the speck in their brother’s eye with a large log hanging in their own. Yet, it was a wise Pagan who said that the first principle of bad teaching is answering questions your students don’t have. I wonder, given the times, if anybody gives a hoot where Christ might still be found and whether your alleged location of protest is any better than the “Chair” which you say was once, but no longer is, the Chair of Peter. I have always wondered why the Albigensians referred to themselves as the “pure ones” and why St. Dominic spent his nights in prayer attempting to convert them. Now I know.
36 Comment by Lone Racer on 5 November 2009:
Thank you Brother Marie for considering my questions, though the examples you adduce are not what I was ever taught – and they deeply offend my more egalitarian sense of justice and fairness.
Excuse my American outlook, but does no one here find it difficult to square the Christ of the NT with the notion that all non-Catholics, or even non-Christians, are eternally damned? Talk about a doctrine (rather like Calvinistic predestination, at least when viewed from the outside) that “offends reason, history, and the majesty of the Creator”!
Those will be saved who are pure of heart (and that really means who have good intentions – and yes, I’m perfectly familiar with Burke on that point). Perhaps, decent non-Christians will have to be converted in Purgatory, or something similar. But the notion that all the ancients, all non-Christians, all who never rejected Christianity because they were never presented with it, possess souls which are eternally doomed is so offensive to elementary moral reason, so un-Christ-like, that I think it would be more intellectually fruitful to inquire into the psychology of those who profess it, than actually to take it seriously as doctrine.
The essence of salvation lies in morality, not faith, and the essence of morality is self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. When a man puts aside his own comfort or selfish desires to aid another who is suffering, he is most like Christ, regardless of what doctrine he professes, or whether he professes any at all. Do you dogmatists really think Jesus is going to … “award” … you some kind of salvationist “points” (recall the justly mocked minister in TOM JONES, swaddling his psyche with his Heavenly accounting) just because you utter the right incantations on Sundays, engage in human-prescribed rituals, and satisfy your obvious psychic cravings for certainty and authority? Be serious. Remember the Pharisees.
I cannot believe someone of the obvious intelligence and immense erudition of Dr. Fleming could ever believe such human-derived hokum.
So, I am a theological liberal (actually, an ultra-liberal). The difficulty I have with most theological liberals is that they are so often faking their faith, or simply smuggling secular liberalism ‘tout court’ into the Church, and then covering it with a thin veneer of theism. They preach theistic liberalism, nothing more.
But it is logically possible (if sociologically unusual) to be theologically liberal, and politically conservative. I’m quite certain that is the correct position, even though my knowledge of Christ comes mainly from the Bible, as well as missals and Masses, and not from formal theological study, which is often an expression more of human intellectual pride, than humble truth-seeking (similarly, Papal pronouncements have as often reflected the very temporal concerns of the Church, whatever their theological window-dressing, than ultimate salvationist issues; that is almost certainly the case with the ones adduced by Brother Marie above).
37 Comment by Lone Racer on 5 November 2009:
An addendum: serious conservatives, including religious ones, need to think carefully about how much they wish to allow doctrinal disputation to influence their politics. The great moral-political debate in the West today is between the advocates of a (Christian) religiously-informed polity, and those who are either atheists or secularists (the latter are those who wish religious faith to have no influence in the public square, whatever their private beliefs).
The kind of theological dogmatism (not infrequently sliding into “angels-on-a-head-of-a-pin” sectarianism) often seen here, and sometimes even in Chronicles itself (one of my friends some years back quit his subscription because he got tired of all the “preaching”, as he put it, and couldn’t discern its relevance to normal, mundane conservative politics and issues), is overwhelmingly rejected (perhaps incorrectly, though I think not) by most Americans, including self-designated conservatives. Indeed, a lot of good Americans really hate those religious types who constantly try to cram their dogma down other people’s throats (another friend rejected the 2008 GOP ticket, not because of McCain’s witch’s brew of warmongering and xenophilia, but because he – unfairly – perceived Sarah Palin as fitting in that category).
I’ve said in previous posts that real conservatives have only two choices in which to locate or from whence to derive their ‘proletariat’ (there should be no need to explain that at this late date any serious conservatism must be revolutionary, and not ‘conservative’, at least in the Burkean mode). We can fight on Religion, or we can fight on Race. Religion, as Sam Francis argued long ago, will get us nowhere. Indeed, we’ve pretty much exhausted and saturated that option already.
Maybe we should start theorizing the other, untried option.
38 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 5 November 2009:
Lone Racer,
I’m an American patriot, conservative (”paleocon,” “traditional conservative,” what have you). I love my land and its people. I love them so much, I want them freely and wholeheartedly to embrace the one religion that saves.
The Popes have condemned religious liberalism. (Pio Nono is one.) Popes have also condemned indifferentism (Gregory XVI is one: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0254d.htm ). Catholics have to accept these as their standards, rather than secular notions of liberty and “fairness” that have been imported into theology.
What I find noticeably absent from most of the liberal excogitations on this issue are (a) God’s actual grace (including the doctrine of sufficient grace, which holds that all men are given what they need to be saved), (b) God’s special providence, whereby He provides all that is necessary to the elect, (c) God’s sovereign right to give an economy of salvation and our consequent duty to accept it from His Church. To divorce God’s justice and mercy from his grace and providence — as well as from the Church He founded and whose teachings He guarantees — is a practical denial of the Incarnation. The “god” of one who believes this way may as well be the Great Clock-Maker of the Deists.
Pax tecum!
39 Comment by Bruce on 5 November 2009:
Brother Marie,
I had no intention of getting into a theological debate (which as a new Christian and very “green” layman I have little ability to win)with you but I do have a few questions that are on my mind.
Re: #25. I don’t understand. How can something that’s a mortal sin not be part of the moral law?
Re: #23. The infallible magisterial pronouncements you site, particuarly the latter two, are all from the high middle ages (when we think you went most astray). Why did God take so long to make this point so clear? I suppose you might say that it wasn’t in dispute until this time but these statements are several hundred years after the Great Schism. Nothing like this appeared in the great ecumenical creeds. Wouldn’t God have foreseen such a huge stumbling block to so many and made it clear in the scriptures or the great councils?
40 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 5 November 2009:
Dear Bruce,
I’m not trying to score points in a “debate.” This is a gentlemanly exchange. I’ll get to your points:
1. By “Moral Law” I mean the Natural Law. God’s revealed law goes beyond this — e.g., to the obligation to believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation, neither of which are knowable by nature. Human law clearly has the authority to bind man (Scripture is clear on this). Therefore, the minute prescriptions of the Mosaic Law were binding on the Jews, even though there were beyond the Natural Law knowable to all men.
Ecclesiastical law, which is human law of a very high authority, especially has the power to bind. The Sunday obligation, for instance, is a human law over and above the precept of the Decalogue that we keep holy the Lord’s Day. For Catholics, it binds under mortal sin. (This law was not instituted until the time of Constantine, by the way.) In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke records the meeting of the Council of Jerusalem. There, certain human laws are enacted which bind Jews and Gentiles alike. Later, Saint Paul would make it clear that this particular human law was no longer strictly binding. Whereas, in earlier times, there was a strict prohibition on eating meats sacrificed to idols, St. Paul makes it merely an obligation in charity to avoid scandalizing pagan converts. (Cf. Acts 15:28-29: “For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things: That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well. Fare ye well.” Compare this to 1 Cor. 8:7-13, esp. v. 9). Certainly, the Apostolic human law prohibiting us from eating blood — something the Jews were very sensitive about — is no longer binding. (So… my Louisiana blood sausage gives me no qualms of conscience. Deo Gratias!)
2. While it was indeed medieval popes who began to define this doctrine with their highest authority, it was by no means anything new to Christians. It is contained in scripture (Mt. 18:17; Acts 2:47; 1 Tim. 3:15). It was affirmed by the fathers. St. Cyprian of Carthage (+258) is the one who gave us the formula “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (there is no salvation outside the Church) — Epistle 73,21. Other Fathers weighed in on the issue, too: http://catholicism.org/eens-fathers.html . Indeed, the horror of schism was based upon this dogma.
God bless.
41 Comment by Ken Zaretzke on 5 November 2009:
I have long assumed that the Catholic Church has a doctrine of “common grace,” which allows Catholics both to insist that the Catholic Church is the one true church AND to acknowledge that many (some?) who are saved are not Catholics. Perhaps this matter was discussed previously, but I missed it.
42 Comment by Lone Racer on 5 November 2009:
Brother Marie: Thank you for your response to me. I’m not sure you quite addressed my central point, however.
At the risk of sounding like an adolescent liberal, let’s get down to brass tacks. Are you saying there is no salvation outside the Christian Church, or even outside the Catholic Church? So a gentle Buddhist, observant Jew, pious Muslim, along with my pre-Christian pagan ancestors, all primitive animists, and even Socrates, are all in or going to Hell?
Even if that is official Catholic doctrine, you don’t think that maybe, just maybe, such views arose out of contingent historical circumstances, perhaps even as necessary responses to external stresses, but for other than salvationist purposes? I know you probably believe that there is some sort of Divine guidance mysteriously working in the Church at all times, but such a view is rather difficult to prove, and most certainly everything man has learned through logic and science militates against its likelihood. I’ve known two priests in my life, one a trained philosopher. It is perfectly apparent to me that the courses of their lives (as I suspect with all others) have resulted from mundane and understandable causes.
My purpose is not to deny God, but to deny the notion that He is actively engaged in history, at least in the post-Biblical period. Ockham’s “razor” has always defeated claims of divine intervention, even before science, which goes on to disprove them.
If Christians wish to successfully apologize for their Faith, at least among the intelligent, they are going to have to do better than merely assert doctrines based on archaic reasoning, or historically situated and influenced pronouncements. Modern man is a philosophical adult, and requires something more than mystery or faith.
43 Comment by R. McCabe on 5 November 2009:
Lone Racer, I am familiar with some of your thinking, since I used to be as blind and petty. There can be nothing more than faith, since faith does not destroy reason but supersedes it. This faith sets us apart from the Greeks, who rely on reason, and the Jews who rely on signs. Occam’s razor has never defeated the Truth. For example, the creation of the universe by God is it’s own simplest explanation, and the most plausible, though as unknowable as the question itself. How limited is reason in important matters, yet we are called upon to be fully reasonable.
I have no authority to speak of Church dogma. I will say that it is the revealed Truth that has created the dogma, not the dogma that has created Truth. Much as Christ has shown us the way, the Church has sought to lay down some pavement on this path so as not to lose it over time. Do not confuse the Church’s path you see with salvation itself, which is up to the will of God. Do not be tricked either that the dogma confines the grace of God. The proof is that many a man has been converted out of his last hour or during his first day, so that God speaks to all in this way. How else could conversion be possible?
Being a Catholic is about living a sacramental life within the Church, not toeing perfectly a logical line, because all men will stumble in that effort. Nor is faith as rigid as an iron rod. Grow not slack in zeal, yet hate what is bad and love what is good.
You should get to know more priests.
44 Comment by Bruce on 6 November 2009:
“Modern man is a philosophical adult……”
I almost spit my coffee on my keyboard when I read that. Modern man is an adolescent in almost every way.
45 Comment by Bruce on 6 November 2009:
@40 Brother Marie
1. The whims of fallen and imperfect men do not bind us under mortal sin and, thus, eternal damnation.
2. None of the verses you give address the Roman pontiff, Petrine See, Bishop of Rome, Bishop of the West, Western Patriarch etc. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus says nothing about these titles or the necessity of subjecting oneself to the person who claims them. I can’t get your link to work so I don’t know what it says.
46 Comment by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. on 6 November 2009:
@ Lone Racer: I second the remarks of Bruce on modern man (though my coffee was already safely swallowed when I read them). I also second the thoughts of R. McCabe. It seems to me that your Christianity does not include such notions as providence or the doctrine of God’s sufficient grace. More than a lamentable oversight, that. And yes, I am saying that those who die outside of the Catholic communion are lost. That’s dogma.
@ Bruce: (Thanks for the coffee thing. That was funny.) I’m sorry the link did not work. Here it is, not surrounded by anything that may bother it:
http://catholicism.org/eens-fathers.html
The fact that direct references to the “Roman Pontiff, Bishop of Rome, Bishop [s/b "Patriarch"] of the West, Western Patriarch” etc. are not found in the references is not a problem(nor are “Pope of the Universal Church,” “Metropolitan of the Roman Province,” or “Supreme Pontiff,” for that matter). Some of these titles for Peter’s successor are of more recent coinage. But once one accepts what the early Christians accepted about the identity of the Church, it’s a matter of filling in the blanks.
Ad rem to the identity of the early Church, here is something I wrote on the Catholicity of the Council of Nicæa.
http://catholicism.org/the-council-of-nicea-was-catholic.html
Pax vobiscum!